updated the
Bermuda Triangle page to
add a
link to a skeptical book on the subject that is out-of-print but
available from Amazon.com's Marketplace Sellers;

updated the
zombies entry to include a
link to an article about a Voodoo gathering in Benin aimed at a call for
peace among African nations;

updated the
pareidolia page to
include a
link to an article about the latest Virgin Mary sighting;

updated the
creationism page to
include a
link
to a satirical article in the irreverent Onion;

updated the
homeopathy page to include a
link to
an article about a British M.D. who has been suspended for three months
because she "risked the health of an 11-month-old girl and failed to get
proper consent before using homeopathic medicine;"

updated the
witches article to include a
link to an
article about 20,000 child witches in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of
Congo;

updated the Mass Media Funk page to include a
note on a story
in the press about surgical supplies left inside patients and a
comment on
stone circles in Alaska and Norway.

Alison Bevege from Australia wrote to ask if I could work my "skeptical
magic on the following ridiculous claims?" The claims in question involve a
litany of absurdities regarding September 11th, including the claim that
American Airlines flight 77 did not crash into the Pentagon. Where that
flight and its passengers are remains a mystery to these conspiratorially
gifted timewasters (perhaps it's been commandeered to
area 51?). The Internet has
its share of these folks, but apparently the main source for 9/11 conspiracy
theories is France and the main deceiver is Thierry Meyssan's L'Effroyable
Imposture [The Appalling Deception] (2002).

Fortunately, the latest issue (vol. 9, # 4) of Skeptic magazine has a review by
L.
Kirk Hagen of this appalling book. Hagen's review is called "French
Follies - A 9/11 Conspiracy Theory Turns Out to Be An Appalling Deception." I won't go into all the details but one common claim
of the paranoid conspiracy
theorists (PCTs) is that there was no debris left by flight 77
and no hole in the Pentagon that fits where the plane hit. One Internet PCT writes: "The last time I looked at the real world, a
solid object could not pass through another solid object without leaving a
hole at least as big as itself." First, the Boeing 757 didn't pass
through the Pentagon. Secondly, the last time I looked at the real world
when a plane weighing more that 70 tons and traveling over 300 mph while
carrying over 10,000 gallons of jet fuel crashes into a something as solid
as the Pentagon, the plane
disintegrates. (Remember, the mass of this object is distributed over a
great amount of space. It's not concentrated in the nose and the wings,
which is what the PCT folks seem to be assuming.) However, this PCT has an answer for that fact: It's been
proven impossible (he doesn't say how) and it contradicts the notion that
bodies were identified by DNA evidence. He also equates "disintegrate" with
"incinerate," so that explains in part his belief there couldn't be any DNA
evidence to evaluate. Also, shock of shocks, there are contradictions in the
eyewitness testimony! Some of it was even fabricated! Hence, there must be a
conspiracy and a cover-up.

Meyssan finds it appalling that flight 77, which struck the Pentagon at
9:43 a.m., was unaccounted for for some 40 minutes as it flew 300 miles over
Ohio. Hagen points out that there were thousands of planes that had taken
off from or were approaching airfields on the Eastern Seaboard. "It is
remarkable that the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) acted as quickly
as it did," says Hagen. "As early as 9:17 a.m. it closed all airports in the
New York City area, and by 9:40 a.m. halted all air traffic nationwide.
Controllers had been monitoring Flight 77 as it approached Washington, and
had even warned the White House." Meyssan, by the way, claims flight 77 was
shot down by a missile. Some Internet PCTs claim it was indeed a plane that
hit the Pentagon, but a small plane loaded with explosives.

Gerard Holmgren has posted
"An analysis of
the physiscs [sic] of the pentagon [sic] crash on Sept 11, 2001." It is
quite elaborate and begins by giving all the physical dimensions of a Boeing
757 and a Byzantine set of calculations as to how big a hole such a craft
should have put in the Pentagon. Shock of shocks, Mr. Holmgren couldn't find
any public listing of the the physical dimensions and structural properties
of the Pentagon. Needless to say, I don't have them either, but I can
guarantee you that the Pentagon is not built like a barn or a billboard,
where, as we have all seen in the movies, a plane leave a visible impression
of its wings and fuselage upon passing through. Nevertheless, Mr. Homgren
is certain there should be a much bigger hole in the Pentagon than he can
decipher from photos, and he has links to many, many photos. He does many
calculations, but his conclusion is based on the assumption that the plane
should have left a bigger footprint. None of his calculations can show that,
unless he also assumes the plane did not disintegrate upon impact.

Holmgren then goes on to do many more calculations of burning points of
metals, DNA, etc., to prove that no DNA could have been identified because
it would have melted. Again, this assumes all the bodies stayed neatly
jammed in a small area where the hottest fire raged and were thus
incinerated. This is gruesome, but disintegration was not only of the
airplane and the small parts that were disbursed widely were not just metal
parts. Now, I have no idea whether DNA was identified (Holmgren says that
"authorities" say that 63 of the 64 people aboard were identified by DNA
testing), but it seems obvious to anyone with common sense that it would be
possible to do such testing on the disbursed body parts. Holmgren's argument
assumes everybody was incinerated. My guess is that the rest of his
arguments make lots of unwarranted assumptions as well and I'm not going to
waste any more time on them.

Alison writes: "I am trying to argue with one of these (PCT) morons but I
don't have your skills." My advice is not to argue with them. They have no
interest in examining all the facts and only give the appearance of
truly wanting to find out the truth about these matters. I suggest, however,
that anyone being confronted by the 9/11 PCTs consult Hagen's scathing
critique of Meyssan's tabloid best-seller (in France, anyway).

***

Martin Wagner thinks there is a scam out there taking advantage
of lonely men.

I thought you ought to know
about another too-good-to-be-true piece of
exploitation floating around out there that could use
the skeptical treatment. It's a bastard offshoot of
NLP [neuro-linguistic programming] called Speed Seduction.
Ross Jeffries, a.k.a. Paul Ross, a former stand-up comic,
has developed a system that promises lonely men that
they can meet and get into bed absolutely any woman
they want--no matter how gorgeous, no matter even if
they're married, no matter if you're the furthest
thing from her type--within minutes of meeting them.
All men, he says, have an inner James Bond and Speed
Seduction can help you break him out of his shell.

Jeffries' approach mixes basic common sense advice
(don't act needy, be in control) with verbal
techniques called "patterns," which are basically
rehearsed and memorized NLP-ish speeches employing
"trance words" and the like, which Jeffries claims
will hypnotize women and make them more sexually
receptive to you.
Again, while much of Jeffries' material has at its
core simple common sense (e.g., he spends a lot of time
emphasizing that men need to build up a positive
self-image so they don't take rejection so harshly),
once he's got his guys feeling good, he lays into the
hypnosis and psychic stuff. And if patterns don't
work--well then, like most pseudosciences, he explains
it as being the men's fault. They've come on too
strong, they aren't using the patterns correctly, they
haven't established rapport, they need to relax, they
need more practice. In short, he's building up false
hope in men.

Most of this is backed up by nothing but
anecdotes, and it's a lot like those "make a million
dollars in no-money-down real estate" infomercials on
late night TV. Even if one person uses the techniques
and gets rich, your mileage may vary, and Jeffries
doesn't have the disclaimer that says these results are atypical like the real
estate infomercials do. And he is employing pseudoscientific NLP claims and telling
men they can trance women into having sex with them,
even if you're a 300-pound zit-faced slob and she's
married and looks like Raquel Welch in her prime.

Jeffries has seminars that fill up for which he
charges about $1000, and the tapes of these seminars
sell for about $400. I think that if any of his
techniques work, they'd most often work for guys who
are the sort of Lotharios that don't have much problem
chatting up women and getting them into bed anyway. A
lot of men appear as guests at his seminars and boast
of their sexual conquests, but then men have enjoyed
boasting to other men of their sexual conquests for
millennia. I've heard some of Jeffries' tapes and
it's clear to me these guys are just getting off on
the ego charge of acting the alpha male stud in front
of the lesser betas. I think Jeffries is exploiting
lonely, sexually inadequate guys. His website is
www.seduction.com and is loaded with egregious
sales-pitch language.
Looking forward to seeing new stuff on the site this
year.

I plan to add some new stuff, but I don't think I'll
have anything to add to Martin's comments on "speed seduction." I think he's
said all we need to know about this subject.

***

Several readers have asked why there is no entry on
"God." The original entry I had on that topic, which I removed
some time ago, focused exclusively on the
Judeo-Christian God (JCG). Now there is a short entry on
gods.

Kimberly Winston, a reporter for the online magazine
ReligionLink (www.religionwriters.com
), a Pew-funded
service for reporters in the secular press who cover religion, contacted me
about being a source for writers on
miracles. "Specifically,"
she asked, "can you address why people believe in miracles? Why so many
miraculous claims turn out to be untrue? Why people choose to believe in
them anyway?"

I wrote back that

I used to believe in miracles and my reasons for believing were quite
simple: I was taught from birth to believe in them. Everybody I knew
believed in them. I had no cause to doubt the reality of miracles. I
eventually came to believe that there was historical, testimonial evidence
for miracles. I suppose I began doubting stories of miracles when I read Søren
Kierkegaard, the 19th century Danish theologian/philosopher. After reading
his analysis of miracles in works like
Concluding Unscientific Postscript it became apparent to me that
even an eyewitness to an alleged miracle--defined as a supernatural
contravention of the laws of nature--would have to believe on pure faith.
I think Kierkegaard must have read David Hume's critique of miracles. The
reasoning is very similar. To believe in a miracle requires abandonment of
all the evidentiary principles upon which beliefs are based, namely, that
there is a regular order to nature. It is not that miracles are
impossible, but that to believe in them must be based on faith alone, not
evidence.

People have believed in miracles for thousands of years. I believe the
first miracle workers were magicians who deceived people into thinking
they had supernatural or paranormal powers. Some of these fraudulent
miracle workers still attract large audiences, such as
Sai Baba in India and
Peter
Popov in this country. People believe in these frauds because they are
easily deceived about things that give them hope for the one big miracle
most people long for: immortality. For some reason, most people seem to
believe that their lives would be meaningless unless they live forever.
So, it doesn't really matter that most stories of miracles turn out to be
untrue. As long as there is hope that at least some are true, the faithful
will continue to believe in them.

I finished my reply by telling Ms. Winston that I'd be happy to expand on
any of these notions or go deeper into the subject. To my surprise, she
enthusiastically agreed to put me on the list of sources reporters can
contact. I'll let you know if any do.

***

The program for
The Amazing Meeting
sponsored by the James Randi Educational Foundation
has been published.
Check it out.
I hope to see some of you there (in Ft. Lauderdale, January 31-February 2).
I'll be speaking on Saturday night.

***

The 11th European
Skeptics Congress will be held in London, September 5-7, 2003. According
to organizers, "We are keen...not to rely too heavily on lectures from
individual speakers, as we want to encourage a lively audience interaction.
To this end we hope to have some debates on controversial issues....We shall
strive to avoid presentations that ‘preach to the converted’. Hence we shall
try to include broader topics that invite divergent views, even amongst
sceptics."